May 29, 2015

University of Wisconsin-Madison and U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) researchers have jointly developed a wood chip in an effort to alleviate the environmental burden* of electronic devices.

Well, actually, a wood-substrate-based semiconductor chip. They replaced the silicon substrate portion in a conventional chip with environment-friendly cellulose nanofibril (CNF). CNF is a flexible, biodegradable material made from wood, as the researchers note in an… read more

Pre-1967 research showed "beneficial change in many psychiatric disorders"

May 28, 2015

Psychedelic drugs such as LSD are much less harmful than claimed and should be legally reclassified to allow further research on their medical use, says James Rucker, a psychiatrist and honorary lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London.

These substances “were extensively used and researched in clinical psychiatry” before their prohibition in 1967 and many trials of these drugs in the 1950s and 1960s… read more

Using a “Gauss gun” principle, an MRI machine drives a “millirobot” through a hypodermic needle into your spinal cord and guides it into your brain to release life-threatening fluid buildup ...

May 28, 2015

University of Houston researchers have developed a concept for MRI-powered millimeter-size “millirobots” that could one day perform unprecedented minimally invasive medical treatments.

This technology could be used to treat hydrocephalus, for example. Current treatments require drilling through the skull to implant pressure-relieving shunts, said Aaron T. Becker, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston.

May 27, 2015

Engineers at The Ohio State University claim they have created a circuit that makes cell phone batteries last up to 30 percent longer on a single charge. The trick: it converts some of the radio signals emanating from a phone into direct current (DC) power, which then charges the phone’s battery, they state.

This new technology can be built into a cell phone case, adding minimal bulk and weight.… read more

May 27, 2015

Disney researchers have found a way for a robot to mimic an animated character’s walk, bringing a cartoon (or other) character to life in the real world.

Beginning with an animation of a diminutive, peanut-shaped character that walks with a rolling, somewhat bow-legged gait, Katsu Yamane and his team at Disney Research Pittsburgh analyzed the character’s motion to design a robotic frame that could duplicate the walking motion. using… read more

May 27, 2015

What if your handheld tools knew what needs to be done and were even able to guide and help you complete jobs that require skills? University of Bristol researchers are finding out by building and testing intelligent handheld robots.

Think of them as smart power tools that “know” what they’re doing — and could even help you use them.

May 27, 2015

A tiny (one-centimeter-square) biosensor chip developed at EPFL is designed to be implanted under your skin to continuously monitor concentrations of pH, temperature, and metabolism-related molecules like glucose, lactate and cholesterol, as well as some drugs.

The chip would replace blood work, which may take hours — or even days — for analysis and is a limited snapshot of conditions at the moment the blood is drawn.

Engineering switchable reconfigurations in DNA-controlled nanoparticle arrays could lead to dynamic energy-harvesting or responsive optical materials

May 26, 2015

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed the capability of creating dynamic nanomaterials — ones whose structure and associated properties can be switched, on-demand. In a paper appearing in Nature Materials, they describe a way to selectively rearrange nanoparticles in three-dimensional arrays to produce different configurations, or “phases,” from the same nano-components.

“One of the goals in nanoparticle self-assembly has been to create structures by… read more

Could create new molecular structures to harvest solar energy, deliver biomolecules, or manipulate light for telecommunications

May 26, 2015

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators have developed a method using DNA for designing new customized materials with complex structures for applications in energy, optics, and medicine.

They used ropelike configurations of DNA to form a rigid geometrical framework and then added dangling pieces of single-stranded DNA to glue nanoparticles in place.

The method, described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, produced predictable… read more

May 25, 2015

Columbia Engineering researchers have created the first single-molecule diode — the ultimate in miniaturization for electronic devices — with potential for real-world applications in electronic systems.

The diode that has a high (>250) rectification and a high “on” current (~ 0.1 microamps), says Latha Venkataraman, associate professor of applied physics. “Constructing a device where the active elements are only a single molecule … which has been… read more

Allows for discovering new pain drugs and predicting effects for individual patients

May 25, 2015

Stem-cell scientists at McMaster University have developed a way to directly convert adult human blood cells to sensory neurons, providing the first objective measure of how patients may feel things like pain, temperature, and pressure, the researchers reveal in an open-access paper in the journal Cell Reports.

Currently, scientists and physicians have a limited understanding of the complex issue of pain and how to treat it. “The problem is that… read more

May 24, 2015

In a new discovery that could lead to chips that combine optical and electronic components, researchers at MIT, IBM and two universities have found a way to combine light and sound with far lower losses than when such devices are made separately and then interconnected, they say.

New environmentally safe paper could lead to light, flexible portable and wearable displays

May 24, 2015

The first light-emitting, transparent, flexible paper made from environmentally friendly materialshas been developed by scientists at Sichuan University in China, the scientists report in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Most current flexible electronics paper designs rely on petroleum-based plastics and toxic materials.

The researchers developed a thin, clear nanocellulose paper made from wood flour and infused it with biocompatible quantum dots — tiny semiconducting… read more

Graphene can now be printed on materials like paper and plastic to create ubiquitous uses such as in RFID tags, wireless sensors, and wearable electronics

May 24, 2015

The first low-cost, flexible, environmentally friendly radio-frequency antenna using compressed graphene ink has been printed by researchers from the University of Manchester and BGT Materials Limited. Potential uses of the new process include radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, wireless sensors, wearable electronics, and printing on materials like paper and plastic.

Commercial RFID tags are currently made from metals like silver (very expensive) or aluminum or copper (both prone… read more